Nen (15 page)

Sarah shoved an ‘OK’ gesture to Howard by curling her thumb and fore finger into a loop with the two finger tips touching each other.

CHAPTER 23

The rodent scuttled into the military medical clinic through the grimy wooden door that was left ajar. He had managed to elude death with just a wounded tail, part of it cut off by Paul’s swooping hatchet that had also fell hard on the furry bodies of his two unfortunate cousins.

In the dark and gloomy clinic, the rodent recognized a familiar stench falling off from the edge of an operating table right ahead. A stench that almost equate to buffet food from a rat’s point of view. The rodent scurried across the floor and slowly made his way up one of the rusty legs of the operating table. When he finally reached the top of the operating table, his eyes began to blink continuously at the mountain of buffet food that lay before him-Henry Parker’s rigid body that had started to decompose!

He moved gingerly over Henry’s abdomen area and settled down in a small area next to Henry’s greyish left hand. The adhesive bandage wrapped around Henry’s left forefinger had a more lively skin color compared to his greyish-blue body. The rodent sniffled and loitered around Henry’s motionless left hand for a while before it started nibbling at his bluish black thumb. A few seconds later, a faint yellowish glow began to radiate from Henry’s bandaged finger. The faint yellow gradually increased in intensity and other parts of Henry’s body started to have that faint, luminous glow as well-his chest, his thighs and even his neck became a symphony of colorful radiance amid the otherwise pitch black medical room. That lasted for a few seconds before the odd luminescence subsided. The rodent paused nibbling for a moment, lifted his head up and scanned the room with his tiny black eyes. Everything seemed alright so he continued to feast on Henry’s rotting thumb.

A few minutes passed. Henry’s belly bulged up all of a sudden followed by an inter-play of bright green and bright yellow luminous lights shimmering inside his abdomen. Within seconds, Henry Parker’s belly was so bloated that at one point it looked like the belly of a fully pregnant woman. Then the unsightly bulge of flesh shrank to only the size of a rugby ball. And when that happened, the green and yellow lights glimmered even more intensely under the pale belly skin.

The unnatural hump in Henry’s belly quivered slightly as it moved slowly towards his chest, bringing along the shimmering lights with it. Slowly but elegantly, that bulging lump with its display of luminous lights crept up Henry’s throat and stopped near his upper neck. It tried to push its way out of Henry’s throat and mouth but it was way too big for that. The bulge of flesh shuddered and jerked violently, as if it was alive and was trying to break out of Henry’s neck. A series of muffled crackles and bone crushing sounds arose from Henry’s throat and lower jaw. The rodent was alarmed by another loud splintering snap coming from Henry’s jaws that was disturbing enough to make him pull himself away from his buffet meal, jumped off the operating table and scampered to one corner of the room.

There was a few seconds of calm before a small outburst on the lower half of Henry’s face pierced the silence with a sharp crunching sound. His entire lower jaw was blown apart and fragments of bones, teeth and bloody human cartilages flew all over the place. The rodent waited in the dark corner of the room, waiting patiently for the commotion to pass before he would return to his spread of buffet on the operating table. He was oblivious to whatever that had just happened and in his tiny brain, the buffet was his only objective that day and so his gaze was pretty much glued to Henry’s body. He observed that a hideous creature with four limbs and a tail had slowly emerged from the blood-spattered hole in Henry’s lower face. The creature’s scaly body was glowing with an odd yellowish green luminescence and it was no bigger than a domestic cat. Threading elegantly like a cat but with frighteningly sharp talons, it crawled over Henry’s chest and climbed down the operating table via one of its rusty leg. It moved gingerly toward the dark corner where the rodent himself was hiding. The rodent could sense danger befalling but it was all too late. The gruesome quadruped paused for a moment. Then it thrust itself at great speed toward the ill-fated rodent.

CHAPTER 24

Paul watched as Howard inserted a hand grenade into a small cavity at the base of the stony arched entrance. He then tied a string to the safety pin on the grenade and did some checks to ensure that the striker lever was unblocked. Earlier on, Howard had dug up a row of tiny pits along the base of the collapsed entrance, each pit barely large enough to hold a hand grenade. Wong and Johnny were right behind him standing next to the rock boring machine that the four of them had painstakingly transported from the command center building to the sealed entrance of the military camp.

Nelson was not with them as he had volunteered to stay in the command center office so that he could start working on the radio station. Everyone was surprised that Nelson was not the least bothered by the presence of the mummified corpse sitting right next to him while he fiddled with the knobs and switches on the radio station set. Frankly, Nelson might be a little crazy at times but he was definitely someone with lots of guts and lots of brains as well. That’s what Paul and Johnny thought of their good old friend.

Beads of perspiration were streaming down Paul’s forehead as he handed the next sets of hand grenades to Howard who cautiously lay them down in the tiny pits and tying a string each to the grenades. After he had inserted all the tiny pits with old MK two grenades that were made by the United States during World War Two, Howard unrolled the strings that were attached to all the safety pins and walked backwards. He tied the ends of those strings into a knot.

“Aren’t we using any of these?” Paul asked, pointing to a sack of Japanese Type 97 hand grenades that looked awfully like small black pineapples.

“We can’t use those for our purpose as we need to physically hit the 97 grenade on a hard surface for it to work.” Howard eyed that large sack of Imperial Japanese grenades on the ground and said, “If only we have those TNT explosives that were used to blow down this entrance. They must have some of those lying around somewhere. But at least you guys found these old US army grenades. It just puzzled me why they were here in the first place.”

“Probably the Japs had confiscated them from their POWs during the war.” Paul said, “It’s a pity we can’t get that Panzer IV working. If not, we can try blowing a hole through using that German armor tank.”

“Well, at least we tried.” Howard said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. Then they backed themselves toward the rock boring machine and hid behind it. While backing up, Howard’s right hand held on to the string knot that was connected to the safety pins of the hand grenades.

“Are you guys ready?” Howard turned around and whispered to Johnny and Wong. Johnny and Wong nodded their heads as they cupped their ears with their hands. Howard took a last glance at the stony entrance, and then he inserted a finger into his left ear and tugged hard at the bundle of strings. The safety pins on all the hand grenades spun off by the pull of the strings followed by random ejections of the striker levers from all the grenades. Paul counted to eight before the first loud explosion shook the entire campsite. A series of nine to ten other blasts followed and within seconds, a thick blanket of dust and smoke had filled the air.

When the dust in the air had settled, Howard walked briskly towards the arched entrance to examine the damage. Paul and the rest hurried over, hoping to be one of the first few to see that big hole that would lead them out of that cavernous underground.

“God damn it.” Howard cried,“Not even a scratch.” He pointed at a couple of charred spots and superficial indentations on the heavy rocks that remained solidly piled, all the way up to the wedge-shaped keystone at the apex of the arched entrance.

Paul clapped Howard’s shoulder and said, “We will look around for those TNT explosives. In the meantime, I guess we have to stick around for a few days.”

There was a short pause. Howard nodded.

“Does this mean we have no choice but to use the rock boring machine now?” Johnny asked.

Howard hesitated before answering, “I really don’t know if that will work, Johnny. These rocks might be massive. Perhaps more than ten feet in depth or it could also be only two to three feet to the other side.”

“So how do we get out of here? How about taking the risk and go back to the elevator landing?” Johnny asked.

“No, we can’t climb up the elevator shaft back there or we’ll end up like my friend Lang.” Wong said with a sigh, “How I wish my wife was alive, she would surely be worried for me by now and she would get help.”

“What about Lang, your night guard friend?” Paul asked, “definitely someone will come for him, right?”

“I hope so too. But no one with the right mind will dare to risk the earth quakes to come here. And I … I have a hunch there could be a heavy snowstorm up there right now. Everyone in our village will just shut themselves in during such bad weathers.” Wong said in a monotone, his eyes shifted away from the other three men.

“Why do you still bring us here if you know a storm is approaching?” Paul stared furiously at Wong with his big fiery eyes.

“Cut it out guys,” Howard interjected, “I think the best we can do now is to get that boring machine working and try burrowing a way out through these rocks. At the same time, we’ll scout around for the TNT and maybe one of us can help Nelson fix that radio.”

“I’ll help Nelson with the radio.” Paul said.

“I’m the only one familiar with this drilling machine so I guess I’m the one staying here to get this thing up.” Johnny said with a weary smile.

Howard nodded and he said to Johnny, “No worries, I will help you with the boring machine.” He then clutch Wong by his arm and said, “Wong, I need you to go back to the elevator landing.”

“What? I do not want to get electrocuted! You go up there yourself.” Wong bellowed with his eyes wide-opened.

“No, you got me wrong, Wong. I didn’t ask you to climb up the elevator. I want you to just station at the elevator landing in case any of your villagers or rescuers were to come down from that end.” Howard explained.

“Oh,” Wong realized that he had over reacted. “That would be fine. I can do that.”

Howard walked over to a large brown canvas sack on his right. He rummaged in the sack for a moment and took out a few handie talkie sets from within. Handing one set each to Wong, Paul and Johnny, Howard said, “Here, take one of these.” He looked at Paul and continued, “Our friend Nelson is indeed a genius. I still can’t believe he could get all these working in less than an hour while we were meddling with the German tank back there.”

“Yeah, he’s really a genius. I think he’s the only one in the whole of Singapore, no, maybe in the whole world, who can literally tear up our cell phones into parts and make the parts work again on this big and ugly walkie talkie, but of course it comes with all these shitty re-wiring and soldering.” Paul said, pointing to the make-shift circuitries and electrical components that were hastily soldered onto the large handie talkie set he was holding in his hand.

“Yeah, that genius took my iPhone.” Johnny grunted.

“Your iPhone is totally useless here, Johnny. All our cell phones are not working here. How many times do I have to tell you that?” Paul said, an exasperated sigh escaping his mouth.

“Well, still, he owes me an iPhone.” Johnny murmured, shrugging his broad and firm shoulders.

“Okay, let’s split up but stay contactable thru the walkies.” Howard said in a firm tone. “Paul, when you get past the barracks can you let Dr. Sarah know about our current arrangement?”

“Sure,” Paul said.

“And, can you...”

“No problem, I will do it discretely. Whatever I am telling her is strictly on a need-to-know basis.” Paul said with a wide grin.

“Thanks brother!” Howard’s face brightened for the first time in a long while.

CHAPTER 25

“That’s bullshit. We shouldn’t be staying here.” Mr. Park paced back and forth and glanced at Sarah. “I agreed to come because I thought the room was clean. But look at this.” He pointed at the dreary mattresses sprawling on top of the two wooden bunk beds inside the cramped living quarter.

“This is the cleanest room of the whole lot, Mr. Park.” Sarah said, staring at both Madam Kim and Mr. Park. “Kevin and I had a hard time clearing these rooms before we brought you guys in. Do remember that we’re having a situation here so you and Madam Kim shouldn’t be too choosy.”

“This is ridiculous.” Mr. Park wailed, dumping his carryall on the floor. Madam Kim said something in Korean and her expression was not too friendly as well.

“Well, I hope you guys get some rest. Good night.” Sarah said calmly to the two fuming Koreans before backing out of the door. She then walked across the narrow hallway to a door directly opposite and gently rapped it with her knuckles.

“It’s Sarah, can I come in?”

The door knob turned and the door opened. Mr. John Chan appeared behind the door and he greeted Sarah with a smile. “Hi Sarah, I’m sorry to trouble you. I know you’re pretty busy now.”

“It is okay, John. What is it that you need? Is the room fine for your family?” Sarah asked, her eyes scanning the room and she greeted Mrs. Chan and her children who were sitting on one of the beds.